ell in with a hospitable Jew, who made himself
remembered by saying that he was honoured in their having partaken of
his little misery.

Natolico, where they stayed for the night, was a well-built town; the
houses of timber, chiefly of two stories, and about six hundred in
number. Having sent on their baggage in boats, they themselves
proceeded to the town of Missolonghi, so celebrated since as having
suffered greatly during the recent rebellion of the Greeks, but more
particularly as the place where Lord Byron died.

Missolonghi is situated on the south side of the salt marsh or
shallow, along the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, nearly
opposite to Patras. It is a dull, and I should think an unwholesome
place. The marsh, for miles on each side, has only from a foot to
two feet of water on it, but there is a channel for boats marked out
by perches. When I was there the weather was extremely wet, and I
had no other opportunity of seeing the character of the adjacent
country than during the intervals of the showers. It was green and
pastoral, with a short skirt of cultivation along the bottom of the
hills.

Abrupt and rapid as the foregoing sketch of the journey through
Albania has been, it is evident from the novelty of its circumstances
that it could not be performed without leaving deep impressions on
the susceptible mind of the poet. It is impossible, I think, not to
allow that far more of the wildness and romantic gloom of his
imagination was derived from the incidents of this tour, than from
all the previous experience of his life. The scenes he visited, the
characters with whom he became familiar, and above all, the chartered
feelings, passions, and principles of the inhabitants, were greatly
calculated to supply his mind with rare and valuable poetical
materials. It is only in this respect that the details of his
travels are interesting.--Considered as constituting a portion of the
education of his genius, they are highly curious, and serve to show
how little, after all, of great invention is requisite to make
interesting and magnificent poetry.

From Missolonghi the travellers passed over the Gulf of Corinth to
Patras, then a rude, half-ruined, open town with a fortress on the
top of a hill; and on the 4th of December, in the afternoon, they
proceeded towards Corinth, but halted at Vostizza, the ancient
AEgium, where they obtained their first view of Parnassus, on the
opposite side of the gulf; r